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On Feb 15th (2nd day of Lunar Festival), Hong Kong showcased its annual Chinese New Year fireworks at Victoria Harbour. I watched it from the Avenue of Stars on the Kowloon side, so Hong Kong Island formed the background. Sadly it was freezing cold that day, and rainy to boot, which dampened (pun very much intended) the mood. We arrived at 6:30, an hour and a half early, yet the entire first row was already filled up. Many of these people had their DSLRs set up with tripods, and I imagine they had already been waiting at least half an hour already.

I nearly got stabbed by an umbrella at least five times.

We managed to wedge ourselves in a spot in the middle area behind 2-3 rows of other people. What I found most annoying were people who were determined to keep their umbrellas open. Not only does it block the view for EVERYONE, I had to keep a lookout to make sure I didn’t randomly get whacked in the head.

Once the show started, though, most people were nice enough to stow away their umbrellas (it wasn’t that rainy anyways). This only left the jerks who raised their tripods so high, their chunky SLRs kept making cameos in the corner of our own shots.

Other than these minor annoyances, the show was enjoyable.

I think that you may actually prefer seeing some fireworks photos, instead of reading a thousand-word paragraph of me describing them for you. Just a warning that the following is going to be very graphics- and exclamation mark-intensive.

Being in Hong Kong at this time of the year is a blessing, as I got to experience the Chinese New Year (CNY) festivities first-hand. A few weeks ago was the Lunar New Year Fair at Victoria Park in Causeway Bay. It’s like the Night Market in Toronto, but 50 times bigger, and they sell all sorts of (useless) things. This year, of course, there was a lot of tiger merchandise. It’s also known as the ”Night Market” or “Flower Market” because CNY usually falls around Valentine’s Day, just in time for you to spend even more money on loved ones.